For a beginner in rc helicopter hobby it is always advisable to go for a small rc helicopter like Rotofly EX fixed pitch, single rotor and Axe EZ dual rotor with no tail rotor. Both are very affordable and have been designed to take care for a beginner, rather dual rotor also called the coaxial rotor or contra rotating helicopters, are the most easy to fly radio controlled helicopters. You need to go for a small radio controlled heli because teaching yourself makes you susceptible to crash it and then losing your heart in the hobby. These radio controlled helicopters come with instructional DVDs and are very user friendly and fun to fly.
If you want a big leap in the hobby, you can have some experienced radio controlled helicopter pilot help you with this. The instructor will help you setting up your heli correctly because if not set properly radio controlled helicopters go unpredictable. An instructor will guide you in teaching you tips and tricks of the hobby, the mistakes you make as a beginner. Your learning time will reduce this way and you will soon be flying like a pro. With an instructor you can start with a medium size radio controlled helicopter. I will recommend going for a simulator like RealFlight G4.5, this will cost a little more but is worth the investment and will help you learn faster.You need to set targets for yourself in order to learn the right way like in any other skill. The more the practical goal will be the more focus you will have on the radio controlled helicopter hobby. Practical achievable targets will help you get motivation and confidence to fly rc heli. Practical goal setting is to take small steps at a time, this way you will not crash your rc helicopter and crash your heart with it. Losing your heli is like losing heart, money, motivation and confidence. Top of all without some practice with your basic rc heli flying can be very dangerous for your and for others too. Step by step learning in all directions will make your basics strong and learn faster so you will be flying instead of crashing.
In the next post I will be listing the guiding steps in learning the rc helicopter flying. There can be many different ways to approach it but these are the steps which I believe are proven to be better in a systematic flying process. this is the way I learnt the hobby so I suggest you give it a try too. Rc helicopter learning steps are formed such that the you will always learn the steps required for the advanced one, and such that you recover from a mishap which is likely in the new maneuvers.
You want to put some thought at the new step or maneuver so you can think of an escape when the maneuver start turning to a disaster, even a small problem can become a disaster if not dealt properly. Be sure that you have tested and tried your escape strategy so that you can actually use that when something actually goes wrong.
You can go for a simulator if you really dont want to have it learned the beginners way. You would want to go for an rc heli simulator which comes with a transmitter control. You can crash as many times you want to and get the skill learned on tips of your fingers. This hobby is really learned on the tips as its all about your reflexes which count for a better flyer. Although the fact of the matter is that you can never have the taste of flying a real heli remotely controlled till the time you fly one, no matter how many times you fly one on the simulator the real stress comes when you fly a real one as crashing an actual rc heli will be heavy on your pockets and this is you do not want to do.
There are many simulators available in the market like I said earlier Realflight is one good out there but in my personal opinion it is not that realistic as the Reflex. Reflex is one which has both the look of it and the realism involved. CSM is one good but that has no better looks that the Reflex.
In the coming posts I will be describing all the learning steps one by one not forgetting the get away with the disaster strategies. You will love them all I hope and learn the rc helicopter flying in a way it is supposed to be.